It has been a LONG time but I recall there were finger like, spring loaded prongs that extended into the firewall. Hence it should pop into place and be held with the prongs.  Typically people have difficulty REMOVING the cable. I recall using a split piece of tubing and then a hose clamp to compress the prong to remove the cable. it was a fine line between compressing the prongs enough to fit through the hole and having enough loseness to actually move the cable.

If the prongs are missing you might as a temporary fix (do at your own risk) try a hose clamp to hold the cable in place.

I have used a small hose clamp to clamp down the barbs, then I pushed the barbs through the fire wall and then I removed the hose clamp. Easy fix.

I had this issue a year or so after I started driving my 78 Sedan.


I ended up replacing the Pinto cable with a Mustang II cable, using the adjuster tube from the Mustang II on the firewall. No issues in the 6 years daily driving it this way, same cable through three clutch rebuilds and three different transmissions.